Electronic marketplaces, such as those accessible via the Internet, may include a catalog of items or products available for purchase. These items may be offered as the basis for commerce (e.g., sale or trade). In one example, customers may utilize a web browser to visit a merchant's website, select an item for purchase from the catalog, and engage in a checkout process to finalize an order for the item. The merchant may operate a fulfillment network including various facilities in order to process such orders. For instance, the merchant may operate a facility that prepares shipments of purchased items. A shipment carrier may acquire such shipments from the merchant and deliver the shipments to the respective purchasing customers.
The facilities operated by the merchant may include various fulfillment processes for fulfilling orders submitted by customers. These processes may operate on items to perform various tasks, such as preparing items for shipment. Inefficiencies in one or more of these processes may impact the overall efficiency or throughput of the entire facility. Furthermore, some resources used to carry out these processes may have fixed capacities. Inefficiently using such resources may result in the needless expenditure of capital to expand resource capacity.
While the system and method for managing shipment release from a storage area in a materials handling facility is described herein by way of example for several embodiments and illustrative drawings, those skilled in the art will recognize that the system and method for managing shipment release from a storage area in a materials handling facility is not limited to the embodiments or drawings described. It should be understood, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit the system and method for managing shipment release from a storage area in a materials handling facility to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the system and method for managing shipment release from a storage area in a materials handling facility as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.